A Nice Handiwork

In keeping with modern times, styles too change into something contemporary. 

What must have been once quite fashionable is now passé. And the lengths to which young people will go for getting these styles done on them, especially for free, are fearful to imagine. 

Now perhaps one may wonder why I am discoursing on such lengthy and rather prosaic lines. Well if you feel too bored then shift your gaze a few centimeters downwards.

One fine afternoon, a young girl in her late teens walked into a store which stocked and sold items that aid the female kind to enhance their appearance. This girl’s name I cannot remember right now, so for the time being ‘the girl’ will have to do. 

The girl walked up to the counter where a shop attendant, a strappingly smart young man dressed appropriately for the job, stood ready to serve her. He had been dozing before the girl had entered, and so vestiges of sleep were still etched upon his good looking face.

The girl came to him and flashed a most beautiful, most charming, and utterly stupid smile.

“Could you please show me the latest in nail enamels?” she requested.

“Obviously ma’am. Do you have any brand preferences?”  The attendant inquired. Our girl mentioned a brand name and the young attendant bent down below the counter to oblige, emerging some time later with a box full of small bottles of the asked for commodity in various shades.

“Here you are ma’am.” The attendant said with professional etiquette.

The girl looked at the box of bottles undecidedly, and then with a helpless air declared:
“Oh, I really can’t decide which color would suit me. Now if only I could try them on. Can I, please?” 

The girl gave another one of her melting smiles, and it worked.

“Surely, please do so.” The attendant returned cheerfully.

“Oh! Oh! May I?” 

“By all means ma’am.”

Permission granted, the girl picked up a bottle of azure liquid, unscrewed the cap, and applied a generous portion on her left thumb. She then let it dry and extending her hand stood back to admire the effect, with which she seemed not satisfied.

“This doesn’t quite click with my thing you know, my, my,” she struggled to find the proper word. “my liking. Yeah that’s the word for it, liking. I think I will try another.”

“Certainly, anything you like.” The attendant expressed, seemingly taken with her.

The girl gave him one more of her charming smiles and picked up an amethyst colored bottle this time. She unscrewed the cap, underwent the same procedure and the outcome was still negative.

“I don’t think this one’s the right shade for me. Maybe the next?” she said hopefully.

And so this went on for about a quarter of an hour, during which the girl had adorned all ten of her fingernails with ten different hues- Azure blue, Amethyst, Bottle Green, Blood Red, Sparkle Blue, Dazzle Gold, Simmering Blond, Acid Green, Orangey Orange and a strange, multi-colored one called Rainbowy.

During this entire time, the attendant had been thinking about something he wanted to do, but could not quite work up the courage to do it. He looked restlessly and longingly at the girl with her bag. A sigh escaped him as she set the last bottle down into the box. 

“Hmm...” the girl wondered, putting down her bag on the counter. The attendant cast another pining look in that direction as she did this. After some time the girl said with a calculated amount of remorse in her tone:
“I’m so sorry to have troubled you. But I don’t think that any of these colors are to my taste. I’m sorry but I don’t think I’ll buy any. Hope I haven’t been too much of an inconvenience to you.” She said prettily.

“Not at all ma’am. Serving our customers is our duty.” The attendant said dutifully.

Smiling (she smiled a lot, this girl) the girl tried to pick up her bag but dropped it on the other side of the counter. She looked at the attendant imploringly, holding up her hands with the still to dry nails, thus explaining her inability to pick up the bag. 

Leaving the box of enamels open, the attendant gallantly dived down and emerged with the bag.

“Thank you very much. I hope I can come back here soon.” the girl said, taking the bag.

“Please do so ma’am.” 

With a tingling of the shop bell she was out.

Outside six more girls of her group were waiting for her. At once they gathered around her, but she motioned them to move on. 

After some time, when they had left the shop far behind, our girl spoke:

“See, I told you I could get my nails done for free.” She declared, and triumphantly held up her hands for the rest to admire and envy. 

“Wow that’s sup!!”

“Really. Ten different colors and all for free too. None of us have that many colors.”

“Yup! This is the latest craze now: different colors on different fingers.” This girl felt it necessary to explain, for she liked explanations.

Our protagonist smiled benevolently.

“Then I’ve won the bet. I told you that I could get free shades on my nails. And it was pretty easy too. That young attendant went jelly before me. I bet it never crossed his mind that I was fooling him. And I got something for you lot too.”

Saying so, she brought out six bottles of enamel from her jeans pocket and distributed them among her friends.

“Wah! But why did you spend so much?” asked the girl who liked explanations.

“No silly,” the girl explained. “I didn’t buy them I pinched the lot. You saw that I dropped my bag towards the end of my stint. That fool, the counter man, bent down to pick it up; and I nicked the bottles.”

“BRILLIANT!!” The other girls echoed happily. And a slave to her habit, the girl smiled again, a sly one this time.

Back at the shop the attendant was smiling to himself too. His attention was fixed on the crisp currency notes he had in his hands.

“Ain’t I the sly fox!” he thought to himself as he counted the notes. “That fool of a girl must be a rich brat. She thought she was being very smart, was she, smiling every ten seconds and getting her nails colored for nothing? 

She must think herself sooo clever. Well I had fixed my attention on her bag the moment I understood what she was doing. Lucky that she dropped it and I could pinch the wad. At least money will be the least of my worries for about a month. Why don’t such brats come in every day?”

Hoping thus to the heavens, the attendant stuffed the notes in his wallet. Then he cleared up the enamel box and put it back where it belonged. Job done and wish fulfilled, the attendant sat down to continue his afternoon siesta, blissfully ignorant of the missing enamel bottles.